![]() The strategy paid off, and Huntsville became a New South success story. George Wallace preached segregation, and Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma erupted in violence, businessmen in Huntsville sought to preserve federal contracts by avoiding racial strife. In the early 1960s, the federal government threatened to shift Marshall projects to other centers unless Alabama made progress in civil rights, and Marshall’s presence mitigated civil rights problems in north Alabama. Marshall’s extraordinary technological achievements often overshadowed the sociopolitical gains brought to Huntsville by the center. Static Firing in Test Stand at MSFC, 1960 On the last three Apollo missions in 19, astronauts explored the lunar surface in a lunar roving vehicle (LRV) designed at Marshall. Saturn V rockets powered each of the 13 Apollo missions launched between 19, including the first Moon landing on July 20, 1969. Marshall engineers performed many of the tests of the Saturn engines on enormous test stands on the south end of the center the tests produced a deafening roar that shook the city of Huntsville. Its first stage alone incorporated a cluster of five engines, each of which generated 1.5 million pounds of thrust. The Saturn V, the culmination of the Saturn series, was one of the technological marvels of the space age. Kennedy’s challenge to NASA to execute a moon landing by the end of the decade. Marshall’s major task during the 1960s was the development of the Saturn rockets that were used in the Apollo moon missions. Shepard into suborbital flight, making him the first American in space. MSFC helped make history in 1961 when its Mercury-Redstone rocket powered Alan B. The 1960s were NASA’s boom years, and Marshall was designated as the agency’s propulsion center, developing the rockets that would launch NASA’s missions into space. ![]() In the 1950s, while still assigned to the army at the Redstone Arsenal, they developed the Jupiter C rocket that launched Explorer I, the first American satellite, in January 1958. Von Braun, who oversaw development of the German military’s V-2 rocket program, put together a team consisting of young American engineers from throughout the South and about 100 fellow German expatriates. On July 1, 1960, less than two years after the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), ABMA became a field center connected with NASA, with German rocket expert Wernher von Braun as its first director. MSFC shares land with Redstone Arsenal, having originally been an army rocket development facility within Redstone called the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA). ![]() Army’s World War II chief of staff and the creator of the Marshall Plan. Located in north-central Alabama, the center is named for George C.
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